


No Promises

by thedevilchicken



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Antagonism, Biting, Blood, Breathplay, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Explicit Sexual Content, Fight Sex, Getting Back Together, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Past Kyra/Thaletas - Freeform, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Rough Sex, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:40:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Seven years after Alexios left Mykonos, he meets Thaletas in Sparta. He's still angry. Thaletas has other ideas.
Relationships: Alexios/Thaletas (Assassin's Creed), Past Kyra/Thaletas
Comments: 2
Kudos: 155
Collections: New Year's Sins Flash Exchange





	No Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).



> This is set more or less just after the end of the main game, assuming Alexios went to Mykonos early on.
> 
> It also assumes the "happy" ending for Mykonos. That's the one with Kyra surviving, Thaletas not being poisoned, and the three of them having that awkward moment at the party where Kyra says Thaletas has told her everything and she's "glad you two had your fun", but Thaletas is staying on Mykonos with her. The "implied/referenced cheating" tag above is for Alexios getting in the middle of the not-completely-official-at-the-time Kyra/Thaletas relationship. 
> 
> It strikes me that Alexios is maybe a bit too happy with that outcome, considering he and Thaletas had just been saying _I love you_ s about five minutes before, so this fic assumes Alexios being sort of pissed that Thaletas told Kyra and stayed on Mykonos.

Thaletas is sitting across the agora, where they met two days ago for the first time in seven years. 

Alexios was running. He was in the middle of an errand for his _mater_ , or maybe it was more like he was rapidly coming to the end of it, given all he had left to do was get back home and walk in through the door after spending the past two months away. He was running across the agora, looking forward to seeing his family and sleeping in a place where murder in the night, being mauled by a bear, or death by drowning were all much more distant possibilities, and then he saw him; he turned his head because it couldn't be him, it _couldn't_ be him, but there he was. 

Alexios stopped running. As he looked at him, sitting there on the wall with one of the ephors and two other men he didn't recognise, it was almost like he'd forgotten how to run. He looked pretty much the same as he had back on Mykonos the day the _Adrestia_ had sailed away, at least from that distance and filtered through his memory, and Alexios wanted to go closer. He wanted to see him. He wanted to talk to him, and ask about Mykonos and the rebellion. But he knew the next thing on that list was Kyra, and he'd've rather spent six months at sea with Stentor than talk to Thaletas about the woman he loved. 

As Thaletas looked up, as Thaletas saw him and started to stand, Alexios apparently found his legs and ran on. He headed past his family's home, picked up Phobos nearby and rode a mile or maybe two past the city walls, out into the woods. His _mater_ wouldn't be expecting him to return yet, at least no more than she half expects him every moment he's away, and naively Alexios thought he'd be alone there; it was just a small clearing in the trees by a shallow stream where he'd run into a bandit camp once, years ago, but now the only signs of life were weeks-old bear tracks overlaid with days-old leaves. 

He dismounted and he gave Phobos a scratch between the ears and somewhere overhead he heard Ikaros screech. Even if he hadn't been alerted by a sharp-eyed, ear-piercing eagle, he heard the hoofbeats approaching soon enough and then felt them in the ground. He knew who it was, he thought, with a hot and sinking feeling, but that didn't stop him drawing the spear from his back just in case. There are people in the world who think he's infallible, but he's always known that's bullshit of the highest order. He makes maybe more mistakes than anyone; he's just learned to try again till he improves. 

"What are you doing here, Thaletas?" he asked, as he watched him hop down from his horse. 

"I wanted to speak to you," Thaletas replied. "You left before I could. You weren't difficult to follow."

Alexios grimaced. He tapped the flat of his grandfather's spear against his thigh, paying absolutely no heed to how many times he'd cut himself over the years doing precisely that. "I don't mean here," he said. "I mean Lakonia. I mean Sparta." 

Thaletas moved closer. He spread his arms wide, palms up, fingers splayed. In just his tunic, armour left behind who knew where, his spear and shield still up on his horse, Alexios might have thought he was harmless. Of course, he'd seen him fight, even if that had been some time ago.

"The rebellion ended," Thaletas said. "Sparta has Mykonos, a new commander has the islands, and I was recalled to Sparta. I've been here more than a month." He paused not so very far away and gave Phobos a pat on the nose; Phobos turned his head quickly and almost knocked Thaletas over and honestly, Alexios couldn't say he blamed him for that. He might have done the same thing in his position, but Thaletas caught his balance and frowned at Alexios as if his horse deciding he was a worthless ass was his fault somehow. Who knew, maybe it was - he'd spend long enough complaining about him after leaving Mykonos that maybe those complaints had stuck. 

"So, Sparta called and you came running," Alexios said. 

"Yes. Isn't that what we all do?"

"And Kyra?"

Thaletas shrugged. "That didn't even last half a year," he said. 

Alexios' grip tightened on the spear's hilt. He clenched his jaw and something in his chest clenched, too, because somehow knowing that what Thaletas had given him up for hadn't lasted either...it didn't help. It made it worse. And it had been years since he'd even set foot on Mykonos, and he'd been sure it didn't matter to him anymore, he'd fucked his way around the whole fucking Aegean since then and he'd told himself he was happy for them until he'd honestly believed he was. But in an instant he was back there, seeing them together, kissing, blissful, holding hands, smiling at each other as Thaletas reached into his chest and squeezed every drop of blood out of his heart. Maybe that was a dramatic flair more worthy of Thespis than Alexios, but it was exactly how it had felt at the time. 

_Didn't even last half a year_ , he thought. _Not even half a year_. So much for bliss. So much for being happy they were happy. 

"I heard you came back," Thaletas said. "You never told me your father was the Wolf of Sparta. Or that your grandfather was King Leonidas. Didn't you trust me?"

If he'd clenched his jaw much tighter, he might have broken teeth. So he took a breath and then let it back out slowly, looking up for a moment at where Ikaros was circling them overhead. As if on cue, he screeched; Alexios would have bet what he was saying was, _Of course he trusted you, you idiot! You just dumped him like a broken shield before he got around to telling you._ But Thaletas laughed. 

"So Ikaros still likes to watch?" he said, smiling, like he had the gall to be amused while Alexios was fuming. "Same horse, same eagle, same broken spear. Are you the same Alexios?"

He put his hands behind his back. He tapped the flat of the spear against his free palm and only winced for a second when it struck him at an awkward angle; it sliced, and he could feel his palm bloom hot with blood. 

"Yes," he said. "I'm exactly the same."

"They say you win battles almost single-handed. They say you're like Achilles reborn. They say you're like Ares has come down from Olympos." 

"The only mountain I came from is Taygetos," Alexios said, hotly, but Thaletas continued completely undeterred. 

"If you've not changed, that means you were holding back the day you fought me."

Alexios could honestly have laughed out loud, or maybe cried, or maybe laughed until he cried, but instead what he did was stare, incredulous, and completely at a loss for words. Of all the other things Thaletas could have found important about that day back there on Mykonos, like the beach or the trail of flowers, the kiss, what had happened after, it was the fucking fight that had stuck with him, and some kind of bullshit wounded pride that said Alexios had beaten him even though it turned out he'd been holding back. 

He was tempted to say, _if I hadn't, you'd be dead_. He was tempted to say, _wasn't it enough that once I'd kicked your ass I sucked your cock?_ What he said instead was, "Yes. I was holding back." 

Thaletas crossed his arms over his chest. He raised his brows. He lifted his chin. "Then I think I deserve a rematch," he said. "No holding back this time. I won't."

He should have said no. Thaletas might have seemed intimidating to some other men, but Alexios was far from intimidated and that was why he should've said no. He was angry, and they were out of sight of anyone else in all of Lakonia, and _that_ was why he should've said no. Phobos and Ikaros weren't going to keep him from killing him and leaving him there like bandits had done it and made off with his valuables. He didn't know if he'd be able to stop once he'd started. Give it till dusk and a meal at home with his family and he knew that would change and he'd be ready to get back arguing with Stentor instead of stabbing his ex-lover in the chest, but he held his arms out wide, his spear in one, the other bleeding freely from the nick he'd put there with the blade. 

"Get your weapons," he said, tersely, and Thaletas, seemingly oblivious to both bleeding hand and anger, smiled as he went to his horse for his shield and spear. Alexios unsheathed his sword while he waited. 

It shouldn't have been much of a fight at all. Thaletas had always been capable enough as a soldier but Spartans are trained for the phalanx, not for single combat, and Alexios has never met a fighter that he couldn't beat. He's the Champion of Pephka. He won the Battle of One Hundred Hands, though he knows Roxana might not quite agree with that assessment. He's slain the minotaur, Medusa, more than one cyclops because somehow it makes sense that there are multiple one-eyed monsters out there in the world. He's brought the Cult of Kosmos to its knees and bested the chief of the Daughters of Artemis, even if he's the only one who knows about half those things. They'd be difficult to explain, even if he wanted to. He doesn't want to.

He could have disarmed him and put his spear to his throat before Thaletas could manage to land a single blow, and it would have been quicker and kinder and he could have left and gone home. But he let Thaletas jab in his direction almost like he had a chance of hitting him. He let him try to barge him with his shield only to skip aside at the last possible moment. He let him tire himself out until even with his perfect Spartan training and conditioning he was breathing hard and his face was red and his spear and shield were dipping just a little lower every time he pulled them back up into position. 

"You're still holding back!" Thaletas said, circling. "I can take it. Show me!"

"You're sure about that?"

"Yes!"

So Alexios broke Thaletas' shield and sent him sprawling on his ass in the clearing's leafy dirt. He pulled Thaletas' spear from his hands, broke it in three places and tossed it away before he could even try to recover and by the time Thaletas actually tried to move, Alexios had straddled his thighs and wrapped his hands around his throat. Somehow it just seemed like the thing to do, and it wasn't like Ikaros or Phobos seemed to disapprove. 

He was still holding back because he could have killed him then and there. He was still holding back and he saw it on Thaletas' face the instant that he realised. All he would have had to do was squeeze and there would have been absolutely nothing that he could've done to stop him, or even really slow him down, and Thaletas knew that with exactly the same certainty that Alexios did. But that didn't stop him trying. It didn't even come close to stopping him: he pressed up against Alexios' hands around his neck even though it made it even harder for him to breathe at all and he got his hands to the front of Alexios' tunic. He pulled. Alexios didn't move with it and so the fabric tore and Thaletas _kept on tearing_ , pulling the fabric apart with a rip like breaking branches until it was hanging open all the way down to the sword belt at his waist. Thaletas put his hands on him, rough hands on his bare chest, nails raking thick red welts. Alexios hissed in a surprised breath through his teeth and let go of his throat. So much for _nothing he could do_ , he guessed. 

Thaletas' neck was red where Alexios' hands had been, not just from the pressure but from the cut he had across his palm. And Alexios knew he should stop, he wanted to stop, he was pissed off and hurt and it was the worst idea he'd had since teaching his sister how to jump off rooftops and land without a scratch or the time he told Barnabas he thought he'd seen a kraken off the starboard bow and then couldn't persuade him he'd been joking. He should've stood up and found a pin or two in his saddlebags to keep his fucked up tunic together until he could get home and buy another, but instead he put his hands to the neck of Thaletas' tunic and he tore it, too, like some adolescent tit-for-tat. But he didn't stop there; he grabbed his spear and he sliced through Thaletas' belt and he tore the damn tunic in two straight down the front. 

Thaletas was naked underneath. Alexios groaned out loud and rubbed his eyes with his uncut hand because yes, of course he was. Didn't that just make perfect sense. Thaletas was naked and he was already half hard and his skin was flushed and it was all so familiar, it was just like Mykonos but with big fucking trees instead of beaches and at that distance he could see there was silver growing into Thaletas' hair, at his temples, all over, his chest, down by his cock. And his muscles were maybe just a little thicker, a little harder, there were scars he hadn't seen before and it was tempting to think that maybe he'd changed, maybe he wasn't the same man who'd told Alexios he loved him and then smiled like that had never happened as he kissed Kyra on the mouth. 

When Thaletas unbuckled Alexios' belt, he let him. When he tore his damn tunic, he let him, and then he tugged the tattered remains away. He was wearing a loincloth underneath but with the help of Alexios' spear - and who knew why he let him take it - he made short work of that; he cut through it till he could pull the rest away and Alexios was just too pissed off and turned on to care when the edge of the blade grazed shallow bloody scratches into his skin. He was too turned on and pissed off to stop Thaletas when he wrapped one hand around his cock and stroked him slowly, just once, base to tip then back again. Alexios hated that he was hard. He hated that he wanted him. So he did the only logical thing: he leaned down and crushed their mouths together. 

After a certain point, Alexios wasn't sure if they were fighting or fucking. After a certain point, though, the fact was they were just plain fucking. Thaletas was sprawled on his back on what was left of his tunic, raking his nails down Alexios' back as he sprawled on top of him. Thaletas brought his knees up, sandaled feet flat to the leafy ground, his thighs framing Alexios' hips, and he pushed up, making their erections rub together infuriatingly. And Alexios kissed him, Alexios bit his lip then pulled his hair till he arched his neck so he could bit his prickly neck as well. Thaletas groaned and bucked up with his hips and Alexios' cock slipped down, rubbed against Thaletas' balls, and made him take a harsh breath against his collarbone. He sucked him there next, hard, hard enough to make him curse and pull a handful of his hair, but when Alexios pushed up on his hands and looked down at him, Thaletas' face was flushed and his eyes were dark and he was absolutely not saying a word of complaint. 

So Alexios thought fine, whatever, what exactly did it matter if he took a stroll into his past and fucked Thaletas there in Sparta and not on Mykonos? So he pushed up, knelt between Thaletas' bare thighs and wrapped one hand around Thaletas' cock. He remembered how he'd liked it: tight and slow, shifting the foreskin back to reveal the thick, flushed head, then nipping it back up again over the tip. He remembered how _he'd_ liked it, too: he shifted down and he licked the tip with every stroke, every time he exposed him in the cool afternoon air, till the muscles in Thaletas' thighs were trembling and that was that, Alexios let him come over one of his hands and against the palm of the other. 

He might've just wiped if off on Thaletas' ruined tunic, but he didn't. He slicked his fingers with it instead and he rubbed them down between Thaletas' cheeks. He got the message: when Alexios moved closer, Thaletas rested one calf up against Alexios' shoulder and pulled his other leg up, one hand under the back of his knee, to expose the hole Alexios was nudging at so insistently. Alexios pushed a finger in and Thaletas groaned and dropped his head back against the ground, and Alexios' cock stiffened up a little further. He pushed a second in and Thaletas cursed but that was absolutely not his way of saying no. Then he pushed the tip of his come-slicked cock against Thaletas' hole. He pushed in, still kneeling, thighs wide. He pushed in deep, just like he'd used to, like no time had passed and nothing had changed, like they were still lovers and not whatever it was Thaletas had left them with. 

The thing was: he hadn't been on Mykonos for long, and he knew that, and Kyra and Thaletas had been there so much longer. He'd come to answer Kyra's plea for help, maybe half for the drachmae and half because he'd thought that he could do some good, and then he'd met Thaletas and his band of shipwrecked Spartans. In the end, what he'd done there hadn't really been for Kyra; he'd liked her, and he's always had an overflow of sympathy for anyone who has such a demonstrably shitty father. But the fact she was the one who'd called him there hadn't stopped him falling all over himself in love with the stubborn Spartan commander. 

He'd told himself Thaletas and Kyra weren't together, because they hadn't been back then, but he knew as he was fucking him on the Spartan forest floor that he'd been telling himself half truths about that all along. The only reason Kyra hadn't been with Thaletas when he'd met the two of them was that they'd agreed on it: nothing would happen between them until Podarkes was dead at the earliest, but that wasn't because they didn't want it to. They'd made promises and Alexios had stepped right into the middle with all the subtlety of a runaway bull. He wasn't sure what else he should've expected. And besides, maybe he really never did trust him: there'd been all the time in the world to tell him exactly who he was, and he just never had. Who knew, maybe Ikaros was on Thaletas' side as much as Phobos was on Alexios'.

For seven years he'd told himself he'd never blamed Kyra; he'd only blamed Thaletas. As he fucked him then, hard and deep, his own damn blood smeared against Thaletas' skin, against his chest, his abdomen, his cock, he figured maybe seven years was long enough to acknowledge the part that he'd played, too. But fuck, that didn't mean he wasn't angry. It didn't mean that at all, not when Thaletas had ended things with him the way he had.

Alexios leaned forward. There was a mark at Thaletas' throat where his hands had been, bruises and blood, and he put his hands back to it. He squeezed, not hard but hard enough, hard enough that as he fucked him, Thaletas' breath came in sharp little gasps. He didn't try to struggle, though; he just looked at him, so damn familiar, and fuck, Alexios could feel Thaletas' cock was stiff again and rubbing at his belly. He fucked him, sharply, deeply, hard, Thaletas' hands lying at his sides grasping over and over at thin air, his muscles shaking, his breath thin and harsh and barely there. He fucked him harder, jarring, till the way Thaletas' hole twitched and clenched around him finished him. He came with a shout that the trees seemed to muffle, pushing deep and holding tight. Thaletas came against him, and his eyes rolled. He passed out with Alexios still inside him. And when he did, well, _fuck_ , Alexios could have almost come again just for good measure. 

He didn't leave him there unconscious. He thought about it, he gave it some really serious thought, but he didn't leave him there. He wiped himself down with what was left of his tunic, he wiped Thaletas, too, then he sat down crosslegged at the foot of a nearby tree with a piece of ruined runic as a bandage at his hand and he sewed the two sides of Thaletas' tunic back together with an obnoxious crisscross pattern in a dyed black thread that would be obvious from half a mile away. He dressed him in it, awkwardly, and he tied the waist with his own spare belt, and he thought about kissing him then while he wouldn't have to explain, except in the end he didn't. And when Thaletas finally began to stir, Alexios tapped his cheek till he opened his eyes. 

He didn't say a word. He just pressed part of Thaletas' broken spear into his hand, roughly the length of his own if a lot more ragged at the hilt, and _then_ he left him there, when he might have been able to defend himself. He still feels like that's more than Thaletas did for him on Mykonos, when he told Kyra what they'd had together and then chose to stay with her. The promises Kyra and Thaletas had apparently made meant nothing to Alexios, but he guessed they'd meant something to the two of them. For _not even half a year_ , at least. 

He heard him try to call him back, but his voice was so rough and weak that it was easy to pretend he didn't hear. He didn't look back. He just rode back into the city in his own spare tunic and tried to forget what he'd just done back there in the woods. It was easier than it had any right to be, once he got home, but when he tried to sleep that night, he definitely remembered. He remembered with his cock in his hand, just like he did last night, too. And he was right: the anger faded. Maybe bickering with Stentor didn't have the same thrill as fucking Thaletas till he passed out with his hands around his neck, but he had to admit it was a whole lot safer for all concerned.

And now here Thaletas is again, closer than he should be but not even nearly as close as Alexios would like. Here he is, sitting alone, with bruises like fingers at his throat that he's not trying to hide. Alexios has a cut healing across his palm that he's not hiding either. And he goes to him, because they're already looking at each other, and frankly he's not sure what else to do but that. 

"Does it hurt?" Alexios asks. He gestures at Thaletas' neck so he'll understand the question, not that he couldn't have worked it out. 

"Not as much as my pride," Thaletas replies. His voice is audible now but slightly rough, and he smiles wryly. Then he stands. He sets his hands on Alexios' shoulders. "Not so rough next time, Achilles," he says. 

"Next time?"

Thaletas takes Alexios' hands in his, just like he once took Kyra's, except his thumb rubs the cut at Alexios' palm. "Next time," he says. He sounds sure. He sounds definite, and Alexios already knows he's right. He shouldn't be surprised; for all his flowers and pretty words, Thaletas always liked it rough. He just needs to learn his limits.

It's a bad idea and Alexios knows it, because it always was. They've both made mistakes, so this will just be a new one to add to the list. He's not changed and neither has Thaletas, at least not in any way that's not just superficial, but the truth is that just means he's still the same man he loved once before. But there's no promises now, and he's going in with his eyes open.

He fits one hand to the bruises at Thaletas' throat. They're dark now, obvious against his skin, and Alexios' fingers will only be a good fit to them till they're not. They have a couple more days at most, like the cut on Alexios' hand. 

He thinks maybe the same's true of the two of them, too: they'll be a good fit till they're not. 

But who knows: they've already done this once, so maybe they can make it fit again.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lessons](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223040) by [Picturemedrowning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Picturemedrowning/pseuds/Picturemedrowning)




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